Happy Home
by MusedMoose
Summary: Kirika contemplates the past and present while waiting for Mirelle's return. One–shot. Contains light fem–slash.


**Author's Note**: This is a fic I wrote for "yurichallenge", a Livejournal community centered around writing yuri/femslash stories based on prompts that others provide. The 'challenge' leads to some interesting stories. This is also strictly a one-shot; I have no plans to continue this. Hope you enjoy.

**Warnings**: Mild femslash (Kirika-Mirelle), but if you didn't read the summary and don't read this, you've lost any right to complain about it.

* * *

Kirika sits and takes a moment of solitude by the window, and waits for Mirelle to return.

Outside, the light of the setting sun slants across rooftops and pale stone. If she looks closely enough in the right places, she sees the scars and chips left behind from a night she wishes she didn't remember. Images of men in masks flicker across her mind, along with echoes of gunshots, and her memory traces the path until she comes to the same place she always does.

The end never changes. A graveyard in the rain, and she asks Mirelle to kill her, says that they know now where she comes from, that they have a promise, and she waits for Mirelle to pull the trigger.

The silence says everything.

She leans harder into the windowframe to feel something solid beneath her. So much changes, and the apartment itself is reassuring in its way. So much may change today, or tomorrow, or anytime in the future. But she is here with Mirelle now, and that makes all the difference.

Even if Mirelle is elsewhere, leaving the house cold and quiet.

Kirika steps away from the window and stares at the pool table. This is where the story starts, where Mirelle first learns of her, where the pilgrimage to the past begins. She reaches out, almost idly, and slides one of the loose billiard balls across the green cloth. It ricochets off of Mirelle's laptop and strikes another ball, and the sharp crack of impact makes her eyes open wide.

She smiles, realizes that she broke the silence. She rolls another ball, and it hits one side with a soft, dull thud, then another, then rattles softly into the leather-strung hole in a far corner. Too quiet. Her smile fades.

The shadows outside grow long and begin to creep in through the windows. The lights of the city start to glow, one by one and a few at a time, and the noises of the world outside change. Kirika returns to the window, looks out. If she closes her eyes, will the world disappear? If she covers her ears, will the world go silent?

If Mirelle never returns–

Kirika shakes her head. Mirelle always comes back, minutes later or hours, but always. Kirika herself is the one who leaves, when Mirelle won't or can't kill her, even though the questions are answered. Mirelle is the one who comes for her, the one who won't let go of her, the one who leads her away.

The one who leads her home.

The word means something now. Home. This is home. When she awakens here, she doesn't wonder who she is. When she leaves here, she knows does so freely, and knows she can come back. When she sleeps here, she does so without worry that she won't awaken again.

She doesn't know if she cries in her sleep. She doesn't know if it matters either way. Sometimes she wakes and her eyes feel strange, feel unfamiliar, feel as though they might not be hers, if they're doing something she doesn't know herself to do.

And those are the nights when she awakens to find Mirelle's arm draping over her, and she listens to the quiet reassurance of the other woman's breathing. She never moves, never says a word; neither of them do. Perhaps it is enough for each to know that the other is there.

There was another, once.

Kirika looks toward the kitchen, and walks there, her steps silent. She slides open the drawer where Mirelle keeps the silver. The wheels give a slight squeak, accompanied by the sound of wood scraping against wood. The silence broken yet again, and only her to do it.

She reaches into the drawer and removes a fork, slowly, carefully, without the familiar clink of utensils against each other. The fork's tines reflect the fading orange-red light from outside, casting a horned shadow upon the wall.

It never feels like home, the place where she should find welcome. A place where people know her and know of her, a place mysterious and familiar all at once, a place she knows she should long for but never does. Chloe loves the place and wants Kirika to love it as well, she remembers.

Chloe loves Kirika and wants her to love her as well, she remembers, and the memory of the other girl's lips on hers, wet and unfamiliar, comes back all at once.

Desperation makes for an unfriendly kiss. Chloe speaks of them being together with the kind of obsession that comes from growing up with the idea, the ever-present thought, the need for it to be. Kirika looks back and wonders how it ever could be, if Mirelle dies and–

She drops the fork into the drawer and slams it shut, hard enough to echo in the small apartment. No.

That is not how it happens. Mirelle comes for her, and will not let go, will not let her die.

There is no peace in the old memories, and so she walks to the bed and lays down, stares at the ceiling, where the light slowly loses its fight to the darkness coming in through the windows. Mirelle is still gone. Her scent clings to the pillows, to the sheets, and Kirika closes her eyes and rolls over onto her side.

A wish tinged with longing, and she can almost feel Mirelle laying next to her, can almost hear her breathe. She matches her breathing to the memory. A feeling of quiet comfort sweeps over her, and the house doesn't seem so empty.

She lays there, hardly moving and hardly thinking, until–

The sound of a key in the lock brings her out of her reveire. She rubs her eyes, and stands as the door opens. Kirika blinks once, and no one is there; blinks again, and Mirelle walks through the door.

The tap-clop of Mirelle's boots on the tile in the entryway leaves Kirika without a doubt: there is someone else here, sounds not her own, sounds she doesn't have to summon up from memory. Mirelle turns to her and smiles.

"Did I wake you?"

Kirika starts to say something, then simply shakes her head, manages a small smile and watches as Mirelle begins putting away groceries. She doesn't look away, listens to everything Mirelle has to say.

It's not quiet any longer. That may be what matters most.

They talk over dinner, though there is little to say; word of another job can wait, the client doesn't want to meet them for a few days. Not long after all the day's light is gone, it is time to sleep.

Kirika lays on her side once more. She feels Mirelle near her, the gentle and subtle warmth of another person. It isn't like her to worry, but there are times when she wonders if this will end. Things are calmer, now, but they could change at any time.

The thought seems worse now that Mirelle is here, and Kirika pulls the covers to her chin, wondering. Will this end?

There is a shift, a slackening in the blanket, a change in the warmth as Mirelle turns over and drapes her arm over Kirika, pulling her close. Kirika lets her breath out, the worry slowly disappearing, and she leans into the other woman, matches her breathing to Mirelle's.

Whether it ever ends or not, Mirelle is here now.

Kirika closes her eyes, knows that she is not alone, and lets herself drift off to sleep.


End file.
